Ravenscar’s eyes flickered towards him, and then dropped again to the pack he was shuffling.
“Brandy?” his lordship said, holding the decanter poised. Ravenscar pushed his empty Burgundy glass a little away from him. “Thank you.”
“You should not have had that capotte,” Ormskirk said abruptly.
“No.”
“I must be out of practice,” Ormskirk said, with a light laugh. “A stupid error to have made! Do not hope for another like it.”
Ravenscar smiled. “I don’t. Such things rarely happen twice in an evening, I find. It is your deal, my lord.”
Ormskirk came back to his chair, and the game proceeded. Once the butler came into the room, to make up the fire. His master, his attention distracted from the play of his cards by the man’s movements, looked up, and said sharply: “That is all. I shall not need you again!”
Outside, in the square, an occasional carriage rumbled over the cobbles, footsteps passed the house, and link-boys could be heard exchanging personalities with chairmen; but as the night wore on the noise of traffic ceased, and only the voice of the Watch was heard from time to time, calling the hour.
“One of the clock, and a fair night!”
It was not a fair night for his lordship, plunging deeper and ever deeper into Ravenscar’s debt. Under his maquillage, his thin face was pale, and looked strained in the candlelight. He knew now that his ill-luck was still dogging him; the cards had been running against him for the past two hours. Only a fool chased his own luck, yet this was what he had been doing, hoping for a change each rubber, risking all on the chance of the big coup which maddeningly eluded him.
A half-consumed log fell out on to the hearth, and lay smouldering there. “I make that fifteen hundred points,” said Ravenscar, adding up the last rubber. He rose, and walked over to the fire to replace the log. “Your luck is quite out: you held wretched cards, until the very last hand.”
“You are a better player than I am,” his lordship said, with a twisted smile. “I am done-up.”
“Oh, nonsense! Play on, my lord; your cards were better at the end. I dare say you will soon have your revenge on me.”
“Nothing would give me more pleasure, I assure you,” said Ormskirk. “But, unhappily, my estates are entailed.”
“Is it as bad as that?” Ravenscar asked, as though in jest.
“Another hour such as the last, and it certainly would be,” replied Ormskirk frankly. “I don’t play if I cannot pay.”
Ravenscar came back to the table, and sat down, idly running the cards through his hands. “If you choose to call a halt, I am very willing. But you hold certain assets I would be glad to buy from you.”
Ormskirk’s thin brows drew together. “Yes?”
Mr Ravenscar’s hard grey eyes lifted from the cards, and looked directly into his. “Certain bills,” he said. “How many and what are they worth?”
“Good God!” said Ormskirk softly. He leaned back in his chair, wryly smiling. “And how came you by that knowledge, my dear Ravenscar?”
“You yourself told me of them, when we walked away from St James’s Square together the other night.”
“Did I? I had forgotten.”
Silence fell. Ormskirk’s eyes were veiled; one of his white hands rhythmically swung his quizzing-glass to and fro on the end of its ribbon. Mr Ravenscar went on shuffling the cards.
“I have a handful of Lady Bellingham’s bills,” his lordship said at last. “Candour, however, compels me to say that they would not fetch quite their face-value in the market.”
“And that is?”
“Fifteen hundred,” said his lordship.
“I am ready to buy them from you at that figure.”
Ormskirk put up his quizzing-glass. “So!” he said. “But I do not think I wish to sell, my dear Ravenscar.”
“You had much better do so, however.”
“Indeed! May I know why?”
“Put brutally, my lord, since your sense of propriety is too nice to allow of your using these bills to obtain your ends, it will be convenient to you, I imagine, to put them into my hands. I shall use them to extricate my cousin from his entanglement. Once that is accomplished, I cannot suppose that Miss Grantham will continue to reject your offer.”
“There is much in what you say,” acknowledged his lordship. “And yet, my dear Ravenscar, and yet I am loath to part with them!”
“Then let us say good night,” Ravenscar replied, rising to his feet.
Ormskirk hesitated, looking at the scattered cards on the table. He was a gambler to the heart’s core, and it irked him unbearably to end the night thus. Ill-luck could not last for ever; it might be that it was already on the turn: indeed, he had held appreciably better cards in that last hand, as Ravenscar had noticed. He hated having to acknowledge Ravenscar to be his superior, too. He could conceive of few things more pleasing than to reverse their present positions. It might well be within his power to do so. He raised his hand. “Wait! After all, why not?” He got up, picked up one of the branches of candles, and carried it over to his writing-table at the end of the room. Setting it down there, he felt in his pocket for a key, and unlocked one of the drawers in the table, and pulled it out. He lifted a slim bundle of papers out, and brought it back to the table, tossing it down on top of the spilled cards. “There you are,” he said. “How fortunate it is that you are less squeamish than I!”
Ravenscar picked up the papers, and slipped them into the wide pocket of his coat. “Very fortunate,” he agreed. “You are fifteen hundred pounds in hand, my lord. Do you care to continue the game?”
Ormskirk raised his brows mockingly. “Had you not better count them? You will find there are six in all, for varying sums.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” replied Ravenscar. “Shall we continue?”
“By all means!” Ormskirk said, and sat down again. “We'll find that this—ah, transaction—has changed my luck.”
“We may,” agreed Ravenscar, cutting the cards towards him.
It seemed, in the next rubber, that the luck had indeed veered in his lordship’s favour. He played cautiously for while, grew bolder presently, won a little, lost a large rubber refilled his glass, and allowed all other considerations than the overmastering desire to get the better of Ravenscar too far from his mind. As the fumes of the brandy mounted to his brain, not clouding it, but exciting him, he ceased to keen an eye on the sum of his losses.
It was three o’clock when Ravenscar said: “It is growing late. I make it four thousand, my lord.”
“Four thousand,” Ormskirk repeated blankly. He looked at Ravenscar, not seeing him, wondering which of his horses he would be obliged to sell, knowing if he sold all he would be unable to extricate himself from his embarrassment. Mechanically he opened his delicate Sevres snuff box, and took a pinch. “You will have to give me time,” he said, hating the need to speak these words.
“Certainly,” Ravenscar replied. One of the candles was guttering; he snuffed it. “Or you might prefer to let me purchase from you the mortgage on Lady Bellingham’s house,” he said coolly.
Ormskirk stared at him for a moment. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. He said with an edge to his smooth voice, “What’s your object, Ravenscar?”
“I have told you.”
“The mortgage is for five thousand: it may be worth some thing over four.”
“We need not haggle over the figure, I suppose. I will give you five thousand for it.”
“You would appear to cherish an unusual degree of affection for your young relative,” Ormskirk said, his lips curling in faint sneer.
Ravenscar shrugged. “The boy is in some sort my responsibility.”
“It is gratifying to meet with such a sense of duty in these days. Yet it seems to me that you are paying high for hi salvation, my dear Ravenscar!”
“You are mistaken: I am acting for Lady Mablethorpe.”
“Do you know,” said Ormskirk softly, “I have the oddest idea in my head? I cannot rid myself of the notion
